What distinguishes a dog from all other animals is his
obvious wish to learn. A spaniel's brown eyes look up at you, plainly and humbly expressing the wish : " if only I could understand." This quality in dogs sets a certain moral obligation on the teacher : it is almost a " sin in the soul " to teach them wrong. In Good Gun Dogs (Country Life, 10s. 6d.) Captain Hardy shows that he has the gift " as strong as any man in Illyria ' ; and has this crowning virtue that he founds his instruction on the essential reasonableness as well as docility of the animal. And how well the dry-points by Vernon Stokes, especially of spaniel and retrievers, express these qualities ! No owner of a sporting dog could desire a better guide. He is perhaps too polemically critical of field- dog trials, which are often conducted with good sense by practical sportsMen. He would have done more good by attacking Show points which do infinite harm. He is a little inadequate, if not inaccurate, in accounts of origin, as of the golden retriever, and says too little about whistled notes ; but on technique and principles of field training he is almost above criticism. His insistence on the value of imitation is worth special notice. It is within the reviewer's experience that the wildest of dogs, as it seemed, may be cured within a single lesson merely by watching a well-schooled performer.
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